All nationally recognized organizations, including the American Red Cross, the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), the Starguard Program, place a high priority on the quick, efficient and safe handling of potential neck, back and spinal cord injuries in the aquatic environment, whether in a swimming pool or other body of water in which people are recreating.
A primary technique to handle potential neck, back and spinal cord injuries in general is backboarding, wherein the injured person is placed onto a substantially flat board as soon as possible after being identified as having a possible neck, back or spinal cord injury. The objective of backboarding an injured person is to enable the person's head, neck and back to be placed into an in-line stabilization position, i.e., in line with one another, and thereby maintain an open airway to facilitate the person's breathing. Moreover, by virtue of a specific construction, most backboards facilitate easier transport of the injured person, e.g., from a field of play onto a vehicle for transport to a medical facility.
In the aquatic environment, training lifeguards to handle dangerous situations involving injured people and quickly backboarding an injured person is an ongoing process that requires additional equipment and personnel in order to safely manage the variables that can positively or negatively affect the injured person's prognosis. These variables include, but are not limited to, the size and condition of the patient, the depth of the water that the injured person is located in, additional water conditions such as temperature, movement and surface conditions, the number of lifeguards on duty, the type of equipment available to handle the specific potential injury, and the amount of practice, training and experience the lifeguards have handling the specific potential injury.
To date, there is not believed to be any product specifically designed to address such emergencies in consideration of the relatively large number of variables that affect the use of a backboard or other type of rescue apparatus in the aquatic environment.